Warriors of Poseidon 04 - Atlantis Unmasked

by some bushes, he guided her to it. Then he sat next to her, his arms around her, and held her while she wept.
     
    The sound of her sobbing—muffled because she tried to hide it from him—and the feel of her warmth as her body trembled in his arms overwhelmed the rock-solid defenses Alexios had carefully constructed over the past several years. He inhaled deeply, trying for control, but failing miserably when the scent of sunshine and flowers from her hair shuddered through his senses.
     
    She was tough, a warrior woman. She never showed weakness to anyone—ever. And yet here she was, crying in his arms. Needing him to comfort her. The fierce drive to protect and cherish surged through him, and a tsunami of unexpected and unwanted emotion crashed through the barriers around his heart like a tidal wave through a fragile coral reef.
     
    She turned her tear-drenched face up to his when his body shuddered against hers.
    “Alexios?”
     
    There was only one choice he could make. Only one recourse open to him. He needed to taste her lips more than he had ever needed food or water or even air to breathe.
     
    He kissed her.
     
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    He kissed her, and she gasped a little against his mouth, but then she was kissing him back. She was kissing him back. She twined her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her and opened her mouth to his invasion, welcoming and enticing him.
     
    Seducing him with her lips and warmth.
     
    He groaned, or perhaps she did, but either way the sound was swallowed up in the heat between them, and he was tilting her head better to devour her and kissing her and wanting her and needing her . . .
     
    The red flashing light of an emergency vehicle splashed on the side of the building, at the furthest edge of his peripheral vision. A vision but not a vision. A memory but not a memory.
     
    Flames.
     
    The fires. The pain.
     
    The torture.
     
    He wrenched his mouth from Grace‟s and stared at the flashing light. Heart pumping.
    Muscles clenching.
     
    Retreat! Escape! Kill them! Escape! Escape!
     
    “Alexios?” She struggled in his arms, and he yanked her even closer, maddened that she would try to escape him .
     
    “Alexios,” she said, stronger now. “You‟re hurting me.”
     
    Somehow the words sank in past the memories. Past the waking nightmare.
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    There was no choice. There was only despair, and the death of hope, and an eternity of loneliness stretched out in front of him. They‟d twisted him, and now he was broken.
    Wrong.
     
    Alexios took the only honorable option available to him.
     
    He left her there, bewildered and alone. Walked, then ran, then flew as mist through the air, desperate to escape. He never stopped, not even once, until he‟d traveled all the way back to Atlantis. His throat burned with unspoken words; his eyes burned with unshed tears.
     
    He ran, and he made yet another promise: he‟d never allow himself to touch Grace again.

Chapter 2
    The waters of the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of St. Augustine, Florida, one month later
     
    Grace cut through the water with long, smooth strokes. Swimming had always been her refuge. Her solace.
     
    Her escape.
     
    Pool, lake, or ocean, it almost didn‟t matter. All she needed was the water, welcoming her, lifting her—buoyant—above sadness and pain. Water washed her clean of the blood, the tears, and the grief. It offered comfort, though she didn‟t deserve it.
     
    A temporary forgetfulness, though it was her curse always to remember.
     
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    She quickened her strokes, slicing cleanly through the rolling waves. The winter wind was blowing at a fair clip, tossing swells of deepest blue almost playfully. Nature watching to see if she could handle the challenge. Chillingly indifferent if she could not.
    The undercurrents were a trap for the unwary—stronger swimmers than she had been towed out to a suffocating death.
     
    Death. Even now, in her ocean refuge, her mind always turned back to death.
     
    Grace slowed her pace, lifted her head out of the water, and shook the droplets from her lashes. Rolled over to float on her back, letting the gentle swell carry her for a while.
    The cold winter water was too much for most swimmers, but something in her heritage protected her from extremes of hot and cold. The “Diana